Talk:Bibliography of the Arab–Israeli conflict

Requested move 22 September 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: No consensus. (closed by non-admin page mover) SITH (talk) 17:48, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

---

Bibliography of the Arab–Israeli conflict → Bibliography of the Israel–Palestine conflict – Most of these books are about the conflict over the land of Israel/Palestine, from the early 20th century (when the land was mostly called Palestine) to today (when the land is mostly called Israel). The Arab-Israeli conflict started only in 1948, and is dormant today (note Iranians are not Arabs). Onceinawhile (talk) 15:50, 22 September 2019 (UTC) --Relisting. Steel1943 (talk) 19:28, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose - the topic is referred to as the Arab-Israeli conflict, per the main article: Arab–Israeli conflict --DannyS712 (talk) 07:11, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

@DannyS712: that is a sub-topic of the subject covered by these books. The Arab–Israeli conflict began only in 1948, about three decades after the conflict described in most of these books. Onceinawhile (talk) 07:35, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

This discussion rings a bell:) Pre 1948, there is no Israel. I would be inclined to leave the Arab Israeli page alone which as you say is a dormant conflict but does not mean no new books will be done for that.Then the problem is only how to refer to all the other books and it is once again difficult to move away from the titles that we already have in relation to the conflict itself. In fact I assume there will be see also links to bibliography/historiography from those pages.Selfstudier (talk) 09:11, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Another project

To editor Levivich:To editor Onceinawhile:To editor Nishidani: There is a lot of overlap between this page and WP:WikiProject Palestine/Books. That other page has its main focus on historical material, so it isn't a straight duplication, but is it a good design to have one page in article space and another in project space? Zero^talk 05:20, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Jeezus, don' ask me. I didn't even know about WP:WikiProject Palestine/Books, since I don't read round wikiwise(being wikidumb) and thanks for referring it to me at least:)Nishidani (talk) 08:23, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

I also didn't know about the WikiProject Books list. At first glance the two don't appear duplicative to me despite the overlap, but I don't really know much about the WP list. Levivich (talk) 13:14, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

This page already violates normal sourcing practice by having direct links to the outside world in the text. Of course it would annoying to have all the links in footnotes, but this makes it more like a project page than an article. Another advantage of a project page over an article is that short comments, even little synopses, can be added after citations without needing to independently source them. This would also make it much more useful to people looking for sources. What y'all think of turning this into a project page? It could become a sibling of the other project page. Zero^talk 13:42, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

What? Bibliography articles violate policy? Are you aware of WP:BIB and WP:BIBLIO? There are lots of these? Levivich (talk) 13:53, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

I'll just suck my thumb on this one, but I think Lev's making an article of recent scholarship is of great assistance in orientating editors, ducking and weaving, coming in to the IP zone, and not something they'd otherwise come across. I missed the Project page completely.Nishidani (talk) 13:59, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Personally I think a mainspace article is likely to be seen/found much easier than a wikiproject sub-page (mainspace article can be found by Google for example). I had expected this page would eventually be broken up into subpages and then the entries migrated over to the appropriate articles, either as works cited or further reading, and these bibliography articles would be like a master repositories of "the best sources" for the various topics/subtopics. Levivich (talk) 14:08, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

That’s my view too. I agree one list would be better than two, and that one list is best located where most people will see it / benefit from it. Neither of these get many views, but this mainspace one is getting about 4 views per day whilst the WP one is getting about 1 view per day. Onceinawhile (talk) 17:00, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Ok, we have a consensus to leave it here. But still it seems unclear what this page is for. Is it intended to grow without limit whenever we come across another relevant book, or is it intended to be a curated list of the best books (in which case one might query the presence of Mitchell Bard etc)? Should sources that would be challenged if cited in articles be excluded? Zero^talk 05:32, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I think "best books" would be better than "all books". Non-academic sources like Bard should probably be removed. Levivich (talk) 04:27, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I propose (1) We only cite books by mid-east specialists unless they are essential reading. (2) We remove the Fiction section. Zero^talk 05:13, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Ideally we would use a published literature review. At Travelogues of Palestine we summarize the cataloguing work that has been widely published before listing the books. Something like:

• https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199756223/obo-9780199756223-0124.xml
• https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/96/5/1450/64591
• https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/review-of-international-studies/article/abs/study-of-the-arabisraeli-conflict/BF00890B83C9D23DEB2AA6BF5A9B15DD

The we could also add a more “popular” section,

• https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2023/10/books-briefing-10-books-recommendation-israel-hamas-war/675801/
• https://www.newarab.com/features/7-best-books-read-israels-occupation-palestine?amp
• https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/article-books-about-the-middle-east-as-recommended-by-globe-staff/

Most readers looking for a bibliography will be looking for the latter I suspect; i.e. a summary of what reliable sources have described as the highest quality overviews of the subject.

Onceinawhile (talk) 08:47, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree about all of the above (including Zero's 1 and 2). Using published bibliographies as sources is a great way to identify the "best" or most major works in the field. The only downside is the academic ones can be outdated--but still, very helpful for identifying major works up to the date of the published bibliography. The popular ones are more recent, though not as authoritative as, e.g. Oxford or Cambridge. Maybe books that appear in bibliographies should be somehow separated from books that don't appear in bibliographies but are still scholarly works published by mid-east specialists. Levivich (talk) 19:23, 16 August 2024 (UTC)